Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last.

Why has the government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.

Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.

There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

Every communist must grasp the truth: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.

No human life, not even the life of a hermit, is possible without a world which directly or indirectly testifies to the presence of other human beings.